Chemist researching impacts of poor indoor air quality

‘We spend more than 90 per cent of our time indoors,’ says U of S chemist Tara Kahan

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Clearing the air

Another technology that is assisting in the quest to protect populations from harmful air pollutants is low-cost sensors. These can’t do anything about the concentrations of pollutants in the air, of course, but they do enable us to know (approximately) what is there and take measures to protect our health if necessary.

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Coronavirus Lockdowns May Raise Exposure to Indoor Air Pollution

This spring, as the COVID-19 pandemic led people to hunker down at home, outdoor air quality improved dramatically in many cities and countries. In the northeastern U.S., for instance, air pollution dropped by 30 percent. But the lockdowns might be having the opposite effect indoors. 

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Every Breath You Take: An Indoor Smog Story

Thanks to federal regulations, our outdoor air has half the emissions from harmful gases that it had four decades ago.

Sounds great, right? Except Americans spend around 90 percent of their lives indoors, according to an EPA-funded study.

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Scientists reveal whole new world of chemistry by stepping indoors

An atmospheric chemist had spent her entire career probing the complexities of outdoor air — how gases and particles in the atmosphere move, interact and change, and how human activities perturb the air we breathe. Then, she went inside. It turns out the chemistry inside can be vastly more complex than that of outdoor air systems.

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How to Clear the Air, Literally, in Your Home

In the era of coronavirus and social distancing, we’re all cooped up in our homes, battling anxieties about the invisible dangers in the air. Might as well do something about it, as least as far as the air in your place is concerned.

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3 things to avoid if you want to keep your carpets mold-free

In a study recently published in the journal Building and Environment, a research team from The Ohio State University’s Indoor Environmental Quality Laboratory found that carpets with higher concentrations of dust were more likely to grow mold than those with lower concentrations.

The team also found that fungi burrowed into the fibers of rugs made from natural materials, such as wool. (The mold the researchers found is fungal growth.)

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Opening windows for half an hour is a great way to cut indoor pollution, study finds

Households should open their windows for at least half an hour a day to flush out harmful chemicals produced by cooking, cleaning and smoking – even if there is no smell.

That’s the conclusion of a leading expert on indoor air pollution, who has found that household contaminants linger for much longer and in far greater quantities than had previously thought.

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Opening the window in your home will not flush out the chemicals in the air

The researchers suggest that the reason opening the doors and windows did not reduce chemical levels for more than a few minutes was because the chemicals were clinging to the walls and on surfaces in the home. As concentration levels in the air dropped, the chemicals were immediately replaced by chemicals detaching from these surfaces and floating into the air.

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